Northborough Sonnets.

The Northborough Sonnets are so named because they were written in the troubled years John Clare spent at Northborough between 1832 and 1837, by which time he had fallen into pitiful mental disrepair and agreed to have enlightened treatment by a Doctor Matthew Allen in his private mental home in Essex. Enlightened because otherwise it was normal practice to whip the mentally ill, and give them straw to sleep on. In the Spring of 1832 the Clare family (eight children and ageing parents) moved from Clare's childhood home at Helpstone into a bigger cottage, better able to accommodate them in the...